


False Impression

by Allamarain



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fobwatched Time Lord, Kissing, Other, Pining, Reader's gender is unspecified, fobwatched Master, human nature au, technically it's a Utopia AU, whittaker!master au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23071087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allamarain/pseuds/Allamarain
Summary: Undertaking a dangerous mission, the Doctor leaves you on Earth. You go back to your old life, but long to be traveling the stars with her again.The one day, you run into the Doctor by chance, except she has no memory of you or herself. Your  determination to find out what happened to may condemn you to certain doom.
Relationships: The Master (Doctor Who)/Reader, The Master (Doctor Who)/You, Thirteenth Doctor/Reader
Comments: 10
Kudos: 83





	1. Chapter 1

The Doctor slams the TARDIS door shut so hard you half expected it to fall off its hinges. She whirls around to face you, her eyes wide in fear. 

“I think we’ve lost them,” she says. “For now.” 

Before you can ask what happened, she runs over to the console, brows furrowed in concentration as she worked the controls. Her fingers dance over the navigational systems as if she were playing piano rather than guiding a spaceship. You don’t know what she’s seen. You’d been in the console room alone when she’d come running in. You want to say something, but the words get strangled in your throat when you see her frightened expression. You’ve been with the Doctor through countless dangers, but you’ve never seen her look this scared.

She looks up at you, fear laced with anguish. “I need to take you home. There’s someone very dangerous out there. Extremely dangerous. I need to stop them alone. If anything happened to you…” she looks away. Part of you wants to comfort her, even though she’s the one protecting you. You move closer to reach for her hand, but she moves too quickly, she is a flurry of motion. The TARDIS groans, not its usual groan, but a long, hollow sound. It almost feels like it’s aching. 

The ship lands and she turns to you, holding your gaze for a long moment. You think, for a moment, this is a confession, an admittance of shared feelings. But she only says, “You need to go. Now. I’ll come back for you as soon as I can.” You can’t bear the thought of leaving her. Although your relationship extends to merely friends, you have longed for more practically since you met her. 

You go back to your old life, from before you met the Doctor. Your life is safe, comfortable, and the dullest thing you can imagine. You rise, work, eat, sleep, with one day blending into the next. And this goes on for two months, until you see the Doctor again.

But it’s not her.

—

You are on your way home, lost in a throng of evening commuters. The Doctor’s standing at an intersection, staring idly at the curb. When you see her, you gasp. You are fixed in place for the briefest of moments, frozen in incredulity. She’s not dressed in her usual blue and rainbows, but in a monochrome black ensemble. But the face is unmistakably hers. You’d know it anywhere. It’s the face that’s haunted your dreams all the time she’s been gone. 

“Doctor!” You shout. She doesn’t react.

In the next moment, you are running after her. You bump into a smartly dressed businesswoman and she curses after you like a sailor when you move on without apologizing. The light changes, and she crosses the street. Shielding the sinking sun from your eyes, you run through the intersection, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a pickup truck. A few more strides and you catch up to her, panting a little from the run.

“Doctor!” you exclaim. Again, she doesn’t respond. You put a hand on your shoulder, and she whirls around, jerking away. “What do you want?” she snaps.

“Doctor,” You’re confused by her harsh reaction. “It’s me, it’s…”

She cuts you off. “I’m not a doctor.” Her tone is harsh, but her widened eyes are frightened.

“What are you talking about?!” You reel in hurt and confusion. Another passersby are staring, curious but unwilling to get involved. You ignore them, focused on the Time Lord in front of you.

“You’ve got me confused with someone else.” she says. “I’m not a doctor, and I don’t know you.”

Your heart sinks when you realize there’s not a trace of recognition in her face. What’s happened to her? You run through the possibilities. She’s lost her memory, she’s been brainwashed. You don’t know what happened, but you need to find out. But you can’t do that by scaring her. 

“Didn’t mean to bother you,” you stammer. “It’s just that you look like a friend of mine. Thought you were her.” 

“Sorry, love,” she says, and you wince when she calls you _love_. “’m not her.” You take a moment to peruse her. She’s wearing a tight fitting black top that accentuates the curves of her figure, complemented by black, trousers cuffed at mid-calf. An apron is low and tight across her hips, the words The Buzzed Ostrich in white block letters along the bottom. When you keep staring, she says, “Now if y’ don’t mind, I need to get to work.” And in another moment she’s gone, brisk steps away, disappearing into the crowd. 

It takes a moment to get your wits about you. The woman you just met looks and talks and moves like the Doctor, but she doesn’t know you. Moreover, she doesn’t know herself. You trudge home, despairing of having lost the Doctor yet again. You need to find her, but you have no idea how. The conversation replays over and over in your mind, until you realize: she was on her way to work. And dressed for it too.

—  
The Buzzed Ostrich is only half full when you arrive. It’s seen better days, according to the worn felt of the pool table and faded advertisements on the walls. The scent of stale beer hangs in the air. As you hoped, she’s there. 

You watch her for a few moments. Looking at her is simultaneously painful and pleasant. She moves up and down the bar with grace and elegance; she’s more like a ballerina than a barmaid. She fills pints from the tap with surgical precision, moving seamlessly among her customers. Despite her petite presence, she exudes control of everything. 

She’s the only bartender on duty. You plunk yourself on a barstool with ripped upholstery directly in front of her, but she doesn’t look up, fixated on a stubborn stain. She’s wearing a similar black top as when you saw her a few days before, but her hair is pulled back into a ponytail. 

“A pint of Magners?” you ask.

“Coming right up.” She looks up and glances at you, at first with indifference, but then squinting, as if you were a puzzle to solve.

“Hi. Remember me from the other day?” 

“Yeah,” she takes a step back in alarm, and glances towards the other end of the bar. Looking for an escape. 

“I wanted to apologize,” you say, your thoughts racing. You can’t scare her away again. “For the way I acted.” 

“Come a long way for apology, yeah?” Her eyes narrow, and she crosses her arms. She looks annoyed, but she’s not about to run. 

“I didn’t mean to frighten you you.” You try to sound as soft and humble as possible. “It’s just that you remind me of my friend, and I miss her.”

She pauses at this, looking you over, as if she could see potential insincerity or ulterior motive. She reminds you of the Doctor so much, you half expect her to pull out of sonic. “She must be some friend, then.” she says at last.

“The best friend I ever had. She’s extraordinary. Amazing. She disappeared one day, saying she’d come back, but I don’t know when, and I really want to see her again.” _Doctor, if any part of you can hear me now…_

She leans forward, interested. “Where’d she go?”

“Away.” Thinking on your feet is an essential survival skill in traveling with the Doctor. “She got in some trouble, and needed to deal with it.”

She doesn’t press further, sensing you won’t give up the details. “I hope you find her soon.” In a more cheery tone, she says. “I’ll get your drink.”

She brings you your order, and you pay her. While she’s putting the money in the register, she has your back to you, and your gaze falls to her shapely bum. The clothes she wears are so much form fitting, dare you say more flattering, than her old ones, and you can’t help yourself. You jerk your head away-you shouldn’t be having those thoughts. Back still turned, she says.“Don’t have an extraordinary friend. Don’t have too many at all. Just moved here a while back.”

“Oh?” This was promising. “Where from?” 

“Gallifrey.”

“Gallifrey?” You nearly choke. You ‘re glad her back is still turned to you, because it gives you a chance to control your shocked expression before she faces you again.

“It’s a small town, maybe 45 minutes from Manchester. Really small.” She hands you your change. “Thought I’d try my luck in the big city.” 

“Well then, welcome to London. I’m Y/N, by the way”

A smile begins to form. “Ophelia.” It suits her, even though you couldn’t picture calling the Doctor by that name. 

You raise your bottle. “Well, Ophelia, it sound like were could both use a friend.” 

“Yeah” she replies. Her smile widens, and your heart aches for the way the Doctor smiled at you like that. “So what do you do, Y/N?” She rests her elbows on the counter. 

“Oh, I’m a writer. Well, aspiring writer,” you say. “Also do a lot of traveling, but I’ve been home recently.”

“Traveling? Where to?” this piques her interest.

“All sorts of places.” You wonder how much to say to the Doc-to Ophelia. Was she under some sort of alien influence? Whatever happened to the Doctor, it must have been not too long after she left you. Was it the thing she was running from that did this to her? You needed to stick close to her, and uncover the truth.

—

You and Ophelia become friends. You go to the bar during her shifts, nursing a pint and chatting with her while she waits on boorish men with large appetites and little patience. You exchange emails and texts. On her off days, you invite her to hang out with your at your flat. You talk or watch trashy TV shows. Before you know it, she’s spending all of her free time with you.  
She tells you before she came to London, she’d worked on a farm, but the farm burned down, and left her without a job. She left home at 18, and her parents are dead. She never mentions anything about aliens or spaceships or her old life. Weeks go by and you’re no closer to finding out what happened to her. You search all over town for the TARDIS, but there’s no sign of it. 

On your first visit to her flat, you ask to use the look as an exucse to take a quick look around. The flat is small, tidy, and the furnishings are shabby charity shop finds, but otherwise it’s completely ordinary. The only unusual thing you find is aside from a few takeaway menus stuck to the refrigerator, there’s no ephemera in the flat. No photographs, no notes, none of the usual detritus of modern life. 

You start going through closets and her dressers, blushing a little when handling her unmentionables, but you don’t find anything out of the ordinary. Your attention turns to the large oak armoire, but before you can investigate, she calls you from the kitchen. You hurry back, making a mental note to investigate the armoire later. You never do. You don’t do a thorough search of her flat. You don’t want to push too hard; you want to remain friends.

But friendship isn’t the only thing that was happening between you.

With the Doctor, there was always a distance between you and her. She was the ancient, mysterious alien, her existence too large, too incredible for an ordinary human. Every time you look at Ophelia, you see the Doctor, and you were reminded of how much you ache for her. Ophelia was her and not her at the same time. She wears the Doctor’s face, has many of the same mannerisms-the way she’d scrunch her nose, or talk with her hands. Ophelia, once she got to know you, was warm, friendly, affectionate. You lose count of the time she’d put a hand on your arm while telling you a funny anecdote, or she’s pushed a lock of hair from your face. You tell her your “stories”-allegedly things you were writing-about encounters you’d had on other worlds, and she hangs on every word. The most contact you’ve ever had from the Doctor was a pat on the shoulder, no matter how much you wanted more.

Despite this, you’d thought the Doctor had feelings for you, the way she’d look at you sometimes in a quiet moment, or from the wide smile when she saw you. You suspected she was too broken, too hurt by the people she’d loved and lost before. She’d never spoken of it, but you should see the wistful sadness in her eyes. And although she never spoke of traveling with another human, you couldn’t have been the first one she’d taken aboard the TARDIS. It was wishful thinking, but if the Doctor hidden inside Ophelia, this unscarred persona could act on those feelings.

You wrestle with your conscience. Would it be wrong, to carry on an affair with Ophelia? To hold and caress the Doctor, at least her body, but without her knowledge? You weren’t sure. You only knew with every afternoon sprawled out on her couch, or dinner looking across from her at your small kitchen table, your resistance is crumbling. 

Then, one night, everything changes. And not for the better. 

You’re at Ophelia’s place, her coffee table filled with snacks while you binge watch Netflix. You were sitting next to her on her sagging, worn couch, paying more attention to her than the telly. She’s wearing short shorts, and you’ve been sneaking glances at her muscular legs. She catches you, once, and meets your eyes, with a warm smile.  
She gets up to refill her water bottle, and she comes back, she sits very close, pressing up against you. You say nothing, but you give her a knowing smile. You press back, savoring the warmth of her body, despite the sweltering July heat. You stay that way through at least through a full episode of Top Gear, hesitant to move. You are hyperaware of every move of her body as well as hers. She tentatively reaches for your hand, clasping it in her own. You feel electricity shoot through you at the touch of her hand, and your heart hammers in your chest. In a stroke of boldness, you raised her hand to your lips, kissing the inside of her wrist, then moving to each of her fingertips. She closes her eyes, arching her head back into the couch, a soft moan escaping her lips.

You lean forward and press your lips to her white, creamy throat, the way you’ve fantasized about hundreds of times. She lets out a tiny gasp. You move upwards, kissing her chin, working your way to her lips. She tastes of salt and sweat. Every thought in your mind is overridden by _this is it, this is happening_.

She’s shy when you break away, her eyes darting downward. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you worry you’ve been too forward. “Everything all right? I’m sorry if-”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just,” she looks away. “I’ve been alone for a long time.” Her fingers are still entwined with yours, and you feel a barely perceptible tremor. “Just a little nervous.”

“It’s okay. I know the feeling.” You do. You’ve felt it for all the time you’ve spent with the Doctor. All the months spent at her side without her realizing your feelings. Ophelia’s hesitation lingers, but she’s looking at you, eyes shining. “Anything I can do?” 

“You know what, I’d like some wine, love.“ You blush at the last word. “There’s some in the kitchen. Can you grab it?”

“Of course.” You bring her hand to your mouth, kissing her palm. 

In the kitchen, you grab a bottle of Pinot Grigio and find the wine glasses. “Where’s the corkscrew?” you call out.

“The junk drawer. Under the coffee pot.”

The junk drawer is crammed nearly full, and you have to remove several items to sort through it. This is where her clutter is going. A flash of silver catches your eye, and you freeze when you see it.

An old fashioned fob watch.

With Gallifreyan script.

You examine the watch closely, but can find no other clue of its purpose. You walk slowly back into the living room, watch in our upturned palm, not taking your eyes off it. This has to important. A sign of the Doctor. But what it’s for, you don’t understand.

Ophelia cranes her neck to look. “What’s that?” 

“I was hoping you knew,” you hold the watch out to her, and she clasps it in her hand to get a closer look. Her eyes widen, her expression a mix of confusion and fear. “I hear voices,” she whispers.

You hadn’t heard anything; it must be something only for Time Lords, or only for her. “What are they saying?” 

“To open it.” She stands up, directly across from you, and you meet her eyes. There’s fear, but also a touch of excitement. Your heart’s beating wildly, even more so than on the couch a few minutes before. She gives you an expectant, questioning look- _should I do this?_ You reply a single nod.

Ophelia clicks it open, and a yellow light emerges. No, it’s not a light, but visible energy. It moves through the air like smoke, tendrils extending and reaching, and flows directly into Ophelia. The energy shoots into Ophelia like it’s drilling into her, and her mouth gaping open in apparent pain. Is this thing hurting her? You snap the watch shut to stop it but the energy keeps coming. 

And then, after several dreadful seconds, it stops. The mood in the room shifts. Before you can react, She grabs for your arm, holding it not in affection, but possession. A chill goes down your spine. Her eyes narrow, and her mouth twists into a sardonic grin. Something is very wrong.

“Well done, you little maggot.” Her voice is low and tight. “You’ve freed me. Blundered your way into it, but freed me nonetheless.” 

“Doctor?” You ask helplessly.

“Doctor?” For a moment, she looks incredulous. Then she laughs, an evil, mirthless sound. “You’re one of her little pets, aren’t you? Oh, this is going to be so much fun!”

She jerks you closer. You can see the darkness clouding her hazel eyes. You try to wrench out of her grasp, but her grip is too strong. She’s got you trapped. Your eyes dart around, looking for an escape, a weapon, anything, but she’s got you trapped. 

You’re shaking so hard you can barely speak, but if there’s any chance of saving her, you need to find out what this thing is that’s possessed her. “What have you done to her?!”

“Nothing, yet. Afraid I’ve given you a false impression. I’m not the Doctor. I’ve merely taken her form, using it for my own purposes.“ Her long fingernails dig into your flesh. From her tone, such purposes are nothing good. 

“I’m not the Doctor.”she repeats. Her eyes narrow into slits, and her voice is barely above a whisper. “I...am the Master.”

She flings your arm away, and you turn and run, straight for the front door. Before you can turn the knob, you can hear the ancient tumblers slam shut. The door won’t unlock, no matter how hard you push. You legs give out and you slide to the floor, quivering in fear. 

“There’s no where to go, Y/N! Except with me.” She shouts.

The Master towers over you. A tool of some sort, like the Doctors sonic, is in her hand and she looks down on you like the prey you are. 

“Come to Daddy,” she growls.


	2. Chapter 2

You wake up with a massive headache and backache, unsure of where you are. Your vision is blurry, and it takes a few blinks for your eyes to focus. The room you’re in reminds you of an operating theatre-cold, sterile white, with bright lights overhead. You feel a soft hum beneath you. You recognize it; it’s the hum of the TARDIS. How are you on board the TARDIS again? You don’t know how you got there. The last thing you remember was the Doctor opening the fobwatch and..

No. It wasn’t the Doctor. She called herself the Master. What was she? Some being, possessing the Doctor? She must have been the one to bring you here. You try to sit up, but there’s something holding your wrists and ankles in place. Looking to your sides, you can see she’s tied you down. The steel table is cold against your bare skin-you were just wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and you shiver.

You crane your neck and look around the room.There’s nothing else in it but some grey steel cabinets. You’ve never seen this room in the TARDIS, but that’s not saying much. There are hundreds of rooms you’ve never seen. How did the Master find the TARDIS anyway? How long have you been out? 

You think of how to escape and rescue the Doctor; that’s what she would do in your shoes. The restraints are each a solid semicircle of metal. There’s no give, no weak spots, and very little wiggle room. You’re there for what could be minutes, could be hours, when you hear the clicking of heels across the floor. “Finally, you’re awake! Humans, with your constant need for sleep.” Her voice, with an air of disgust.

It’s her. It’s the same body, but everything about her has changed. Ophelia’s timidity has been stripped away, replaced by a swagger of arrogance. Black leather pants accentuate the curves of her hips, complemented by matching lace up boots. The blood red, scooped neck top shows off a hint of cleavage. Despite what she’s done, you can’t help but feel a spasm of longing as you gape at her. You try to compose yourself. “Who are you? How’d you get in the TARDIS?”

“You really want to know who I am?” she says, looking you up and down. She reaches for the tool she had before, and in less than a second, your right arm is free. Noting your widened eyes, she says evenly, “If you even think about escaping, I’ll slice you into tiny pieces.” She takes your hand and places it on her chest, first on the left side, then the right. Two heartbeats. She’s a Time Lord, like the Doctor.

“Told you before, love, I’m the Master. The Doctor’s oldest friend. Or enemy. Same difference. I’m a bit insulted she hasn’t mentioned me.” With equal speed, she has your wrist back in the clamp and sealed. “I can’t wait to see the look on her face-well, the look on _my_ face-when we find her.” You shiver as she runs a long, sharp fingernail down your leg. “See, last time I saw the Doctor, she did a very, very bad thing. Caused me a lot of pain and suffering.” She leans down, to whisper, hot in your ear. “And I intend to repay her in full.”   
You flinch at her touch. and she withdraws. “What, you don’t like me anymore, Y/N? That’s a shame, because we made such a good team.” She paces away, her back to you. “Doesn’t matter anyway, because you will help me.”

You want to tell this godawful _impostor_ to do her worst. Traveling with the Doctor, you’re no stranger to peril. You’ve been kidnapped, interrogated, poisoned, thrown out of a spaceship-sometimes all in the same day. But when you look at her, the Doctor’s form in such an alluring outfit-it’s more difficult than anything you’ve faced before.

She turns around, arms folded. “Where is the Doctor? Where did she go?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me.” If you knew, you wouldn’t be in this mess.

She looks insulted. “Of course you know. She tells her little strays everything. She can’t help herself.”

You shake your head. “She didn’t. I have no idea where she went.”

She stomps towards you. In a flash, a knife appears in her hand. “She doesn’t like her pets to be…mistreated. She gets so attached. It’s sad, really.” She runs the curved surface along your cheek. “Where is she?”

The knife’s blade gleams in the light, and the tiniest of wrong moves would slice your skin. You lie very, very still, as you meet her eyes. “I. Don’t. Know.”

She stares at you, contemplating you for a moment. “You’re brave. Stupid, but brave. I like it.” Her dark red lips curl into a smile as the knife disappears in a sheath at her waist. “I’m going to have to find _other_ ways to break you.” She saunters to the edge of the table, letting her hand trail on the cold steel. You’re trying to keep yourself together-despite your bravado, you’re shaking inside. What does she have planned for you next? Torture?

It is torture, but not in the way you expected. In a single motion, she jumps on the table and kneels between your legs, leaning over you. Her face is inches from yours. 

“Y/N, I can make this very, very worthwhile for you.” Her hand brushes your side. “Tell me where the Doctor is, and I will give you what you’ve been wanting. If you want, you can even imagine it’s her.” She strokes up your inner thigh. “I’ll make sure it’s the most intense experience you ever have.” 

“N-no” you whisper, ignoring the flush that spreads through your body. You’re tempted, extremely tempted, to make up something about the Doctor and give in to her, but you can’t. “I don’t want that.” 

“Don’t lie to me” She sniffs. “You’re giving off pheromones like a spurting geyser. You can’t help yourself from responding to me. Humans, so simple.” There’s a trace of disgust in her eyes. “Tell me.”

Her breath is hot on your face, and you will yourself to look away, but your head doesn’t obey you. Her uncanny resemblance to the object of your desire, her body, hovering so close to hers, the way she keeps stroking up and down your thigh, not quite reaching the ache between your legs, but close, so close…

You shake your head with as much conviction as you can muster. “No.”

Her hand stops midstroke. The veneer of calm vanishes as she grabs your shoulders, a gleam of violence, a gleam of violence in her eyes. Her nails dig into your flesh. For a moment, you think she might tear you apart with her bare hands. “WHERE IS THE DOCTOR?!”

“I’m right here!” The same voice, from the doorway. The Doctor, in her usual clothes, her mouth in a wide O of shock She staggers back, but only for a moment as she recovers, righteous anger forming on 

“Doctor!” The Master jumps off the table. “How’d you get in here?”

“I’ve been flying a TARDIS for 2000 years. You really think I don’t know how to break into one?”   
she gestures to the Master. “Really? What is this about?” 

“You don’t like it?” she says in mock surprise. “What’s wrong, can’t stand seeing the face of someone you hate?”

The Doctor pushes her aside, and runs over to you, brows furrowed with concern. “Y/N, are you hurt?” 

“We were just getting to know each other.” The Master preens. “ Really shouldn’t leave your pets lying around, Doctor. They’re bound to find a new...Master”.

The Doctor’s face crumples, but only for a moment. She turns back to the Master, her eyes reduced to slits. “Let Y/N go.” Her voice is deep and low, 

The Master laughs, a deep, throaty sound. “Why should I?”

The Doctor reaches into her pocket. “Believe this what you’re looking for?”” It’s egg shaped, encrusted with jewels. “The Janus Device. Equivalent to 100 nukes, and shiny to boot.”

The Master steps forward, reaching out, but the Doctor jerks her hand away. “How did you get your hands on one of those?”

“Does it matter? Let Y/N go and it’s yours.”

The Master kept her eyes transfixed on the Janus device, looking like a child on Christmas morning. “I could blow up an entire continent with this. You would let billions of people die, just to save one?”

“Yeah,” she gives a small, tight nod. She looks vulnerable, defeated. “You’ve hurt so many of my friends, taken so many of them away from me...” her voice cracks. Straightening herself up, she asks, “Do we have a deal?”

The Master slowly shakes her head, a smile of delight crossing her face. “Doctor, I’ve ruined you for good, haven’t I? Is this who you are now?”

“Do we have a deal?” she repeats, irritated as she extends the device. You squirm against your restraints, but they won’t budge, no matter how hard you try. You can’t ask her to sacrifice all those people to save your life. You look at her with pleading eyes, but she looks beaten. You don’t know how you’ll live with yourself.

The Master snatches the device from her hand, and holds it up to the light. inspecting every detail.“Ha-ha! Time to unleash this, right in the middle of Trafalgar Square. With you and your little pet in dead center, of course. Did you really think I was going to let Y/N get away?”

Her posture shifts, and there’s a mischievous gleam in her eyes as she pulls out her sonic, and points it at the device. “Absolutely not.”

The Master’s eyes widen in surprise, but before she can react, she is immediately covered in a humming, translucent blue elongated orb. She bangs against the side, but it only sways, like a bubble.

“What did you do?!?” she screeches in alarm. 

“Removed the bomb from the casing, replaced it with a self-enclosing shield. It’s impenetrable.” She smiles, a glint of her teeth reflecting in the light. “And laser proof. Again, been doin’ this for thousands of years.”

The Master’s fists are clenched at her sides. “DOCTOR!! Let me out of here this instant!” 

“Y/N!” Ignoring her, the Doctor rushes over to you, looking relieved. “Let’s get you out of those cuffs.”

\--  
It was the Master that the Doctor had been trying to protect you from when she dropped you off on Earth, she explained later. She’d sensed the Master nearby, and tried to track her down, but lost the signal when the Master turned herself human. The Doctor quickly explained something about arches and rewriting biology that you didn’t quite understand. The Master had a habit of trying to kill her, and at her last regeneration, the Master had copied her current form. Normally if you face an enemy without her, she asks you a lot of questions, but this time, it doesn’t seem like she wants to know anything.

You’re back aboard the TARDIS-the Doctor’s TARDIS. The Master had taken you to her own TARDIS, which had been disguised as the armoire in Ophelia’s bedroom. Things should be back to normal, but they’re not. You’re sitting on the hexagonal steps, watching the Doctor fly the TARDIS. But she’s behaving differently towards you. Quieter. She’s holding you at arm’s length, but you catch her sneaking glances at you a few times, looking worried. You wonder if this is about the other friends of her who were hurt by the Master. That she’s nearly lost you, too. But there’s something else, something you can’t identify, and it nags at you. 

This has been going on for several planets now, and you can’t handle the tension any more. When she takes a step back from the console, you approach. “Doctor, is anything bothering you?”

“Me? No, only things that bother me are genocide and pears,” she says, trying to sound cheerful, but her voice is strained. She’s not looking at you. “Okay, maybe a little bit bothered by seeing the Master again. Especially wearing my face.”

You’re not the least bit convinced by this charade. “Are you sure? If there’s anything you want to talk about?”

She looks back at you, looking like she wants to say something, but her. Finally, she asks, “There is one thing, itchin’ at me. The Master….did you...and she...” 

She flushes. You’re not sure if she surmised it from the Master’s position on top of you, or if she overheard your conversation. At first you think she’s upset with you for snogging her rival, but she doesn’t look angry, more haunted. You realize she’s jealous.

You debate for a moment on what to say, and settle on, “When she was human.” She doesn't need to know the details.

“Did-did you like her?” The Doctor looks uncertain, a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. She’s making herself vulnerable, in a way she normally doesn’t. This is your chance. The most courageous, the most kind thing to do is to meet her where she is. 

“As a human? She was fun to be with. We had a good time. But mostly,” you reach out to take her hand. “I thought she was you.” 

There’s a moment of hesitation before Doctor’s fingers close around yours. She looks up at you, smiling. Warmth shoots through every part of you. You don’t know where it’s going, or where you’ll end up. You never do, when it comes to her. You only know it’s going to be your greatest adventure yet.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm stepping a little outside my comfort zone for this, so I hope you like it. I have no idea when the next chapter's going up. Thanks for reading!


End file.
